Quick Summary:

“In the spring, at the end of the day you should smell like dirt,” says Margaret Atwood. Well, I’m not sure we’ll all leave here smelling like dirt, but this morning we are all about deepening our awareness of how all these good gifts around us—with the gracious conditions that make it so—come from our Creator’s almighty and altender hand.

And so, on this Earth Celebration—Rogation Sunday our voices, with the Psalmist, sing: LORD, SEND OUT YOUR SPIRIT, AND RENEW THE FACE OF THE EARTH!
And on each Lord’s Day we take into our selves—into our bodies, our cells—the grain once sown as seed, which, rooted into the good earth, and nourished by warming sun and falling rain, was harvested, milled into flour, kneaded into bread, shaped into loaves and brought to this Table.

We call this bread HIS BODY, he who said: UNLESS A SEED FALLS INTO THE EARTH AND DIES IT REMAINS JUST A SINGLE GRAIN; BUT IF IT DIES, IT BEARS MUCH FRUIT. So it is, Sisters and Brothers, that when we eat this bread, this grain, he is sown in us—so that we might become a harvest of life for the sake of the world.